Faces of Conflict: The impact of the First World War on art and facial reconstructive surgery

This exhibition brings together collections of historic surgical instruments, the works of artists such as Otto Dix and Wyndham Lewis and contemporary artworks, some commissioned for this exhibition. The unprecedented numbers of facial injuries in 1914-18 led to both innovations in surgical practice and to a permanently changed understanding of the face. Just as artistic practice fed into surgical practice (through sculptors working as mask-makers), so the radically new forms of surgery developed at this time changed the context in which artists represented the face. The exhibition looks at the unique historical situation of the facially injured soldiers of the First World War, the complex question of their reintegration into society and the long-term cultural legacy of that situation. The exhibition connects works created during and immediately after the First World War (items from the McAlister collection (Gillies Archives) and works by Henry Tonks and Eduardo Paolozzi) to contemporary work by René Apallec, Eleanor Crook and Paddy Hartley.

Website
www.rammuseum.org.uk/exhibitions/faces-of-conflict

Source: http://www.culture24.org.uk//sw000088?id=EVENT513059